Online Public Relations Thoughts

Daily entries on Public Relations and communications ideas and trends

Friday, May 02, 2014

When Silence Fails

There is a company that makes license plate tracking software for the police that doesn't want the law to talk about it. Hence, it has sworn patrolmen to silence. So, what happened? A story is written about the company anyway and its effort to control the press. The company should have known that media stipulations written into contracts would guarantee that reporters would look into the business. Some things are better left unstated, and this is one. It would have been better for the company to state that journalist questions must be referred to the company's PR department to get answered. It is a positive approach and understandable. A policeman on the beat probably doesn't understand the software or database beyond using it. Prohibitions have a way of highlighting the thing one wants to avoid. Companies should understand that by now.